New York a Step Closer to Using Drones to Inspect Buildings
New York City has thousands of buildings and many of them are old and have issues with the facades falling apart with age. Two years ago a woman was killed by a falling piece of debris from a building. Detailed inspections often require expensive scaffolding that ties up sidewalk space and is unsightly. The solution, […]
Attention Mechanical Engineers! It’s Time to Get Your PE
Watch our new video. You have achieved a lot in your career, but you know you are capable of more. Getting your PE license opens up a whole new world of possibilities for you to achieve the extraordinary. At DTC, we know the PE Exam, and we can help you make those possibilities a reality […]
Living Walls can Reduce Heat Loss from Buildings by 30%
Researchers at the University of Plymouth in England are studying how utilizing living walls can reduce heating and cooling costs in older buildings. A pre-1970’s building (called the Sustainability Hub) on campus was retrofitted with flexible fabric sheet systems with pockets allowing for soil and planting. After 5 weeks of measurements, the heat loss in […]
Deep into the Sea and the Imagination
I grew up watching the TV series “Sea Hunt” staring Lloyd Bridges. The lead character had been a former Navy frogman, what is now called Navy Seals. With his sophisticated scuba gear he seemed to be able to go anywhere under the water. What I would come to learn in my fluid mechanics classes is that […]
Russian City Is Cooling Ground to Preserve Buildings
Norilsk, a city of 170,000 in northern Russia, is mechanically cooling the ground in places to prevent the permafrost from melting. When the permafrost melts, the ground becomes soft and large buildings (like apartment blocks) will sink or tilt. So, about 8 million Euros are being spent to thermally stabilize the ground. This issue is […]
FEATURED TESTIMONIAL – “Wonderful Training for the PE”
“I took my computer based exam after going through the newly developed DTC training for Mechanical CBT, and it was a huge help. And the BEST news? I passed!! The testing strategy provided by Dr. Tom and team allowed me to stay relaxed and I found myself with plenty of time after each section to go back and […]
The Mothership – Science Non-Fiction
I think the first time I heard the term “mothership” was in the sci-fi movie “Independence Day.” The term is now commonly used to reference a space ship that can deploy and recover smaller versions of itself. However, up until now this concept was only science fiction. Well, according to a recent Breaking Defense article, DARPA, […]
A Sincere Thank You to Veterans
On Veterans Day, everyone here at Dr. Tom’s Classroom would like to thank all veterans for their service to our country. We appreciate their dedication and contribution to preserving our freedom. We especially honor the many engineers who have served in the United States military. Their work is an inspiration to us all. U.S. Military […]
Utilizing Parking Garages to Heat Homes
A company in Switzerland has developed panels that can be installed in underground parking garages that can provide geothermal heat to adjacent homes. Enerdrape has created 1.3 m x 0.7 m (4 ft x 3 ft) thin metal panels that can be installed onto concrete walls in underground parking garages. The panels exchange heat with […]
Rollover Alleys – The Dynamics for Disaster
Vehicle dynamics are an important consideration for highway design and construction. Large trucks are a common design vehicle for highway infrastructure. A variety of factors focused on large truck characteristics include: turning radius at intersections/driveways, lane widths, acceleration on upgrades, control of speed on downgrades, and more. Due to the high center of gravity (which can be exacerbated by […]
